Native Greenvillians, avid cyclists and business partners Larry Webb and Mike Kiriakides are taking a no-nonsense business approach to commercial real estate.
Larry Webb and Mike Kiriakides are the owners of KDS Commercial Properties, a real estate firm focusing on commercial real estate, brokerage and development services in the Upstate. In business since 2008, these business partners bring a unique mixture of experience and focus on providing their clients with personalized service.
How did you decide to become business partners, and what is your background?
LW: I have a 25-year healthcare background and really wanted to do something different in the last phase of my professional career. I wanted to have better control over my personal schedule, and so I transitioned into commercial real estate. In 2008 Mike and I were riding [bicycles] together one day and we decided to start KDS Commercial Properties. We started right when the economy was going to take a big hit but we decided to go ahead, hunker down, and our strategy was to take selective projects and weather the storm.
MK: I grew up in the food-service business and worked in all facets including operations, retail, leasing, restaurants and land development, and it instilled in me a strong work ethic. I graduated from Clemson in 1988 and spent some time in the family business but knew it wasn’t the right fit. I had some dealings with commercial real estate through my family’s business and so I ventured out into commercial real estate, first with a firm here in Greenville and then on my own. Larry and I knew each other through cycling and other personal interests and we both believed that our diverse backgrounds complemented each other and started KDS.
You’re both very involved in Meals on Wheels. Can you elaborate?
LW: We both believe that you shouldn’t be in business in a community if you’re not willing to give back to that community. We both enjoy cycling as a good form of exercise, so we started a company team, recruited some of our friends and we do fundraising that way for Meals on Wheels. Over the past six years, we’ve raised over $50,000 doing something we enjoy.
You call your company a boutique firm; what does that mean?
MK: It means we specialize in giving personal attention to our clients. We aren’t too big, even though we have local, national and international clients. Our strategy is rather than to be everything to everybody, we fill a niche, primarily in healthcare and retail, and really focus on our clients. We don’t take on a project and pass it on to someone else; we give it our personal attention.
What services do you provide that set you apart from other firms?
MK: We do a lot of fee-based development that is unique. Traditionally developers only work on their own projects, where they own the land. We work with clients to develop property that they may already own or are interested in buying, but they don’t have the expertise, contacts and resources. We take on their development for them, pull all the pieces together – i.e., planning, construction, leasing, etc. – and then turn it back over to them when the project is done. We also serve as advisors to our clients providing due diligence and advise them if a project is a good fit for them.
What are some of your past projects that you are most proud of?
LW: Not every transaction is the same and it’s not the size of the project, it’s the ones that have a long-term lasting impact that we are most proud of. We’re very proud to have brought CVS to downtown Greenville. This was something that had been on the city’s master plan and the site had sat there, unimproved, for over a decade. We went out, recruited CVS (along with other tenants) and secured the appropriate financing to bring them to downtown Greenville.
MK: We also just finished a project for Chuy’s Restaurant, located on Woodruff Road which is their first location in South Carolina. Hotel Domestique is another project where we found the property, took it to George Hincapie knowing that he was retiring and looking for opportunities, and that hotel and restaurant will be opening in August.
Flowers Bakery was another project that we just finished up. The property was coming off of a 30-year lease and the building was in disrepair. We not only secured a new long-term lease but handled the construction process for a complete redevelopment of the building.
What about future projects?
LW: Verdae Development has hired us as the marketing and development consultants for their new office and retail facility at Legacy Square. We are also very proud to have completed the lease negotiations for a new billing center and administrative offices for Bon Secours Health System at Brookfield Parkway in Greenville. This is a 35,750-square-foot facility that will bring a minimum of 85 new jobs to the area.
